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More than ever, Boulder County residents are casting early ballots

By Tony KindelspireLongmont Times-Call

Posted:
10/27/2012 06:12:53 PM MDT

Updated:
10/28/2012 06:44:06 PM MDT

Beverlee White, of Louisville, makes phone calls at the Boulder County Republicans office in Longmont on Wednesday. Both parties have had to adjust their campaign practices and timing due to the amount of people taking advantage of mail-in and early voting opportunities.
(
Greg Lindstrom
)

Boulder County mail-in voters

Age range: # of active voters # of PMIV* % of PMIV

18-25 30,051 14,182 47%

26-40 42,002 25,927 62%

41-60 69,870 51,181 73%

61-80 36,427 30,303 83%

80-plus 6,081 5,594 92%

Total 184,431 127,187 69%

*PMIV: Permanent mail-in voters

Source: Boulder County Clerk & Recorder's office

Active voters requesting mail-in ballots in Boulder County:

2008:64 percent

2012:74 percent

Source: Boulder County Clerk & Recorder's office

Percentage of mail-in voters by county:

Boulder: 69.2 percent of active voters

Arapahoe: 76.6

Denver: 67.7

Douglas: 77.7

Larimer: 73.5

Weld: 71.0

Source: Colorado Secretary of State's office

LONGMONT -- One of the great things about voting in Boulder County is you have choices.

You can cast your ballot the traditional way, at your local polling place on Election Day; you can go into a designated polling place and cast your ballot before Election Day; or you can exercise that same solemn right ahead of time, on the couch in your pajamas if you choose.

More people than ever are opting for the freedom of the couch or some version thereof. Seventy-four percent of active voters in Boulder County requested a mail-in ballot for this election, a 10 percent increase from the last presidential election cycle in 2008.

"I like to have my vote done early in the election process rather than waiting for Election Day," said Michelle Webb, a 53-year-old Longmont resident and mail-in voter. "I also like the privacy and convenience."

Mike Stahlman said mail-in voting helps him because if he s not familiar with an issue or candidate while he s filling out his ballot, he can simply go to his computer to get up to speed.
(
Matthew Jonas
)

Webb, a 12-year resident of the city, said she's voted by mail every chance she's gotten since moving here.

Mike Stahlman, 33, moved to Longmont five years ago after having spent a year in Breckenridge and, before that, living in Washington state. Longmont is the first place he's lived that he's been able to vote by mail, said Stahlman, who attended college in Wisconsin.

He's a big fan of that method, he said, because it makes him feel like a more informed voter. If he's not familiar with an issue or candidate while he's filling out his ballot, he can simply go to his computer to get up to speed.

"I felt bad voting straight-line for my party because I didn't stand completely with either (party)," Stahlman said. "I literally take a half-hour or 40 minutes to vote. In the past, when I was at a polling place, I felt like I had to be in and out of there in minutes, and sometimes I would just vote the straight line. With mail-in, I just feel way more educated."

It turns out that, at least in 2008, those who chose to vote by mail were the most diligent about making sure their votes counted.

According to the Boulder County Clerk & Recorder's office, 96.5 percent of the active voters that received a mail-in ballot in 2008 filled them out and turned them in. That was much higher than the 85.8 percent who cast ballots either as early voters or voted on Election Day.

Mail ballot votes accounted for 67 percent of all votes cast in the county in 2008. That compares with the 16 percent of votes cast through early voting and the 17 percent that came on Election Day.

Not everyone is a fan of the process, however. Some have their doubts.

Suzanne Lainson, 64, of Boulder said she was a mail-in voter "for about a week."

She had signed up to become a mail-in voter this year but soon after saw a New York Times article about problems with mail-in voting in certain parts of the country. She quickly switched her registration back.

"You know, mail does get lost ... " Lainson said last week by phone from her home.

Boulder County Democratic chairman Dan Gould makes calls at the Boulder County Democrats field office in Longmont on Thursday.
(
Greg Lindstrom
)

She said that she went in and voted early last week, and about half the people where she voted -- it was fairly crowded, she said -- were in there to drop off mail-in ballots they had filled out at home.

She simply feels more comfortable filling out her ballot in a polling place, Lainson said.

"When I went to vote they asked, 'Do you want the machine or do you want the paper ballot?' So I chose the paper ballot. I want my vote to count, so anything I can do to ensure that that happens, I will do that.

"I want the most glitch-free system possible. If you give me multiple choices to vote I'm going to choose the system that is least likely to malfunction."

Not counting overseas voting, Boulder County residents have three choices to vote: mail-in, early voting or going in the day-of. With more people opting for mail-in and early voting, that means long lines on Election Day are rare. But it also means the two dominant parties have had to alter their get-out-the-vote efforts locally.

"The campaign doesn't ramp up to the day of the election, it ramps up to the day the mail ballots go out," said Dan Gould, chairman of the Boulder County Democrats.

"A big pro (for mail-in) is it makes it easier for more people to vote," said Gould's counterpart with the Boulder County Republicans, George Leing. "Some people are unable to get there on Election Day. ... But that convenience does come with a cost (in the potential for voter fraud)."

Both campaigns say they keep an almost daily eye on data released by the Boulder County Clerk's office that shows who has voted early or turned in their mail-in ballot. That way they don't waste precious resources calling or knocking on the door of the already voted.

Neither side, at least at the local level, said they feel mail-in and early voting gave an advantage to one political party over the other.

"I don't think there's any settled conclusion about that," said Gould. "We just want people to vote."

Added Leing, "There's a lot that's been said about what party does (benefit more) or whatever, but I don't want to play that game. When you can get more people to vote that's a good thing. That's a good thing for our country."

With mail-in ballots having gone out Oct. 15, early voting running from Oct. 22 to Nov. 2, and then the task of making sure everybody who wants to get to the polls on Election Day does, it's a challenge for the parties just to keep track of everything, said Candace Bowie, field team leader for the Boulder County Dems.

"Voting has become a lot more complicated," she said. "It used to be that you just showed up at a certain place on a certain day, and it was basically the same place every year."

And with 400 people on the field team, as Bowie is coordinating this year, that means everybody has to be on the same page.

"It ends up being a pretty complicated message that we try to impart," Gould said.

Getting mail-in status is easy, but you have to ask for it

"There has been a trend across the country to have more and more ways of voting," said Kenneth Bickers, a professor and the former chairman of the political science department at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

Early voting is one of those conveniences that didn't used to exist, for example. Another is the expansion of what Bickers calls "no excuse absentee voting" -- what we now call mail-in voting.

"In most states, the way absentee ballots worked, you had to more or less petition for an absentee ballot," Bickers said, adding that some states had a "stringent limit on excuses," while others would take virtually any excuse.

No excuse needed in Boulder County, although you do have to ask, said County Clerk Hillary Hall.

"You have to request it," Hall said. "Either as part of your registration form, or we have also done special mailings to people."

According to Hall's office, just over 69 percent of active voters in Boulder County have signed up to be permanent mail-in voters -- meaning they will receive mail-in ballots for every election as long as they remain active voters.

(Some elections in the county, such as the primaries earlier this year, are mail-in only for everyone.)

That 69 percent is actually on the low end when you look at surrounding counties. Almost 80 percent of Douglas County's active voters are signed up for mail-in only, and Weld is at 71 percent, according to the Secretary of State's office. Hall said she thinks that's for a couple of reasons: First, the county's population of students and young professionals just starting out are better off not signing up for permanent mail-in status because that requires re-registering every time there's a change of address. Second, a lot of other counties are more aggressive about getting people to sign up for mail-in only, she said. When a voter registers for the first time her office will send out a couple of notices letting them know that mail-only voting is an option, but if there's no response then the onus is on the voter to change their status if they want to.

However, one change this summer will likely add to the number of voters throughout the state choosing mail-in status, Hall said.

"It just changed this summer that when you go to the drivers license (bureau) you can check a box that will sign you up to vote by mail," she said.

Previously, such registration required an entirely separate form.

The future of voting

No matter how a ballot is cast, Hall said it's the job of her office to maintain the integrity of the voting process and making sure each vote counts.

When it comes to mail-in ballots, state law requires that each voter fill out and sign their own ballot, and that not occurring is one of the potential problems that the GOP's Leing referred to.

Bickers, for example, said his house received four mail-in ballots even though one of those active voters has since moved out of state.

"There are issues with the mail ballot that don't exist with the same-day option or even with the early voting," Bickers said.

Hall said that one of the safeguards her office has in place is a trained signature verifying team that compares the signature on a mail-in ballot with what is on that voter's registration form. Sophisticated handwriting recognition software -- made by Longmont-based Parascript -- aids in that effort, she said.

Further, she said, people can go online to verify that their ballot has been received by her office.

Asked her predictions about how voting might look in the future, Hall said it will always be a balance between taking advantage of technology while making sure every vote counts. Young people probably wonder already why they can't cast their votes on their smart phones, but the safeguards don't exist yet for that to happen, she said.

"You don't get a do-over with it, so how do you make sure everything works as it should?" Hall said. "You have to get them to vote and make sure that everything works as it's intended to."

Bickers notes that there are still states that don't allow even early voting, much less mail-in ballots. But, he said, that will likely change over time. It's just a matter of how long it takes that change to come.

"It's going to be generational," he said. "I think younger voters, younger people, they don't like to be told that they have to go to one place on one day, and they can only do it on that day."

That said, he added, "Some people like the ritual nature of voting, and that disappears. There was something nice about standing in line with fellow citizens and exercising your right of citizenship."

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